Amazon is a marketplace for virtually everything, including several hundred thousand private-labeled Amazon FBA products. They are all available for you to sell – and for profit. As an Amazon FBA seller, you can work from home, on your own schedule, selling new and used items. It’s a great life! However, if you fall onto the wrong side, all of the benefits of being an Amazon seller can quickly disappear.
Starting a Amazon FBA business is never straightforward, but it can be particularly difficult if you don’t have all the information you need. Here are 17 common mistakes people make when they begin selling through Amazon FBA and how you can avoid them.
1. Not understanding that Amazon is a “reputation economy”
2. Not checking to see if your product idea is viable, here you can find the list of top selling products on amazon
3. Not using reviews to your advantage
4. Not reading Amazon’s Terms of Service
5. Not checking for patent infringement before selecting your product
6. Not calculating the potential profit margin of your product
7. Ordering too few units of your product—or too many!
8. Using an overseas supplier without first vetting them thoroughly
9. Selecting a supplier with questionable shipping practices
12. Neglecting to do research on quality control issues common to your industry or product type
13. Forgetting to account for the cost of broken or damaged inventory in the event that it arrives at the warehouse in poor condition and needs to be returned or disposed of, or in the event that it is destroyed during shipment on its way back to your supplier
14 Amazon doesn’t make it easy to sell on their platform, and they intentionally don’t provide all of the tools you need. But that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t have them. I recommend using an inventory management software.
15 I know it’s tempting to stock up on trinkets and knick-knacks, but these things are a waste of time and money when selling on Amazon FBA. You’ll spend more than you make for any profit you do make, so avoid them at all costs.
16 There’s something called the Buy Box that appears on every product page on Amazon, which is where customers go to actually buy something on Amazon. It’s not enough to simply sell your products at list price; you have to beat everyone else’s prices in order for your products to be featured in the Buy Box—and if your products aren’t in the Buy Box, no one is going to see them and no one will buy from you! So
17 Amazon’s guidelines are pretty clear-cut and easily accessible. Failure to follow them can lead to suspension of your account, which ends your business right then and there. Getting reinstated, if possible, at all, generally takes weeks or even months—and at that point, it’s too late to salvage what you’ve already invested in your business.
If you’re thinking about starting your own business on Amazon, or you’ve already started one but are struggling to stay afloat, Even if you’re a seasoned pro, you might be surprised by the number of mistakes Amazon sellers make. You may be making some of them yourself!
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